What Does Sudden Wealth Syndrome Have to Do With Living Your RichLife?

Is there a magical number in your future? A magical number that tells you that a certain amount of money tucked away in your portfolio will give you all the security needed to see you through your golden years (i.e. retirement years)? Who came up with this number and what went into that calculation?
How much faith are you placing into that magical number? Will that amount of money stored away give you the peace and security that you are seeking? Will it make you happy? Will it be the answer to any and all problems that may arise during retirement?
The answer is, probably not.
Even though most of us know this, still and yet I see many pre-retirees banking on their accumulation (no pun intended) to get them through from the day of retirement until they leave this old world. However, this concept says that we can continue to produce less, but expect more. It’s flawed thinking at best.
Deep down, we all know that there is no security outside of our own self and the total value we can add to our own lives and to the lives of those around us. Deep down, we all know that happiness and contentment will never be found in a bank account or in massive net worth. Deep down we know that we are the happiest when we are living active, productive lives.
If nothing else, we need look no further than the malady psychologists have termed “sudden wealth syndrome.” Contrary to popular belief, it’s been proven repeatedly that a sudden abundance of wealth can cause more problems than it solves.
Sports stars, entertainers and lottery winners are notorious for making a great deal of money in a short period of time and squandering it quickly. They start spending it on things that only go down in value (mansions, yachts, cars, jewelry, and partying,) and start to disperse the money they have. They can usually keep this up until they stop earning big money. (Or in the case of a lottery winner, until they run out of capital.) These are people who earned or acquired hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet it disappeared.
My comparison here is not to say that retirement funds are gained hastily; obviously they are not. The point is if a certain amount of money could provide security, contentment, happiness and peace of mind, then these people would surely have had it. But they did not. In fact, just the opposite. Many of them are miserable.
I like to encourage retirees to put money into its proper perspective. If the accumulation of money is the sole focus, many other things in life will fall by the wayside and suffer from neglect. And, as is often the case, this distortion will cause the money to decrease rather increase.
The RichLife focuses on the context of money and the quality of one’s life -- both. A life that is lived richly is a life that is filled with doing what you want to do, with whom you want to do it, without having to worry about money.